Such a mining mesh, which is also known as a chain link woven mesh, is generally used in the mining industry as mining support mesh or in the building industry as tunnelling reinforcing mesh.
It is known to stabilise roof strata of underground mines and tunnels with all types of meshes, such as woven and welded meshes. Such a welded netting mesh for tunnel constructions is e.g. described in the EP-patent no. 1390592 B1 of applicant. A disadvantage of such welded mesh for mining or tunnelling mesh is that it is rather expensive. Another disadvantage is that it is rather stiff or rigid, which can lead to fixing problems when positioning such panels of welded mesh adjacent to each other against the roof strata because these panels do not adapt correctly to the roof strata of the underground mines or tunnels. Yet another disadvantage is that the welded mesh does not support heavy loads due to early failure of the welding points.
It is a.o. for these reasons, that in many cases, woven meshes, such as chain link woven meshes, are preferred and will be used to resist the downward sagging of the roof strata in the mining and tunnelling industry. Such chain link woven meshes are generally known and are e.g. described in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,473,652, 3,512,760 and European patent 862959 B1.
Sheets or rolls of such woven meshes need to be placed border by border against the roof strata by means of all kinds of fixing elements, such as bolts, tensioning nuts, bearing plates, . . . . It is also known to apply a concrete layer by means of shot-concrete for fixing the sheets or rolls of woven meshes to the roof of the mine or tunnel.
To obtain a continuous reinforcement by means of sheets or rolls of woven meshes and to avoid e.g. loose rock that otherwise could fall into the mine or tunnel from the roof of the mine or tunnel; it is also necessary to connect the borders of the adjacent sheets or rolls of woven meshes strongly to each other.
A disadvantage of these known chain link woven meshes, when used as reinforcement for the mining or tunnelling industry, is that it is necessary to overlap the two borders of the adjacent sheets or rolls of woven mesh over at least three or four meshes of the sheets or rolls for obtaining a strong closed continuous reinforcement and for avoiding in this way any possible problems with such a reinforcement. It is clear, that this connecting problem of two adjacent sheets or rolls leads to a higher use of reinforcing mesh due to the two overlapping border areas of the two adjacent sheets or rolls of woven mesh.
The basic reason of this need of the overlapping of the two adjacent border areas of the woven meshes is probably due to the fact, that these known chain link meshes at its both borders or edges are provided with standard single knots, which are not closed in a strong way and are therefore easily opened under rather low tensions.